


Code Talker

by aggiepuff



Series: Empath [3]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, X-Men (Movies), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-20
Updated: 2016-04-20
Packaged: 2018-06-03 08:41:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6604267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aggiepuff/pseuds/aggiepuff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve gets an unexpected visit from an old friend he could have sworn was dead.</p><p>Set directly after <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/6598144/chapters/15094576">"Neighbors"</a> in <em>Scenes in the Life of an Empath</em>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Code Talker

Steve Rogers entered his SHIELD-issue apartment with a heavy sigh of relief. Even after two months of being in this strange new world he still couldn’t quite comprehend how loud everything was. His apartment was a haven, sparsely furnished with simple, mass produced furniture and blessedly quite.

With a roll of his muscular shoulders Steve tossed his keys into the bowl on top of the cabinet beside the door and, shedding his brown bomber jacket, moved further into his apartment. He was halfway to the kitchen when something moved in the corner of his eye. A shadow in the corner of the room shifted, uncurled and stood.

Steve launched himself halfway across the room before he fully registered the movement. He slammed into the intruder with a grunt, tackling them but before they hit the floor whoever it was had wormed free of his grasp. Steve landed on his side, hitting the rug covered wooden floor with a grunt, but he didn’t stay there. He was on his feet and moving again, heading for his shield hanging on the rack by the door, when a familiar voice said, “Hold your horses bucko!”

Steve froze. He knew that voice, had hear it a thousand times broken by the crackle of a field radio in a time he had been told was long gone. His gaze found the intruder, half their face illuminated by a slash of light from the kitchen wall plug-in.

It was a woman, medium height and build, handsome in a way Steve could appreciate but was not physically attracted to. Her glossy black hair was pulled back from her face in a thick, waist-length braid, accentuating high cheekbones, a strong nose and startling green eyes. Her skin was the burnished copper of a Native American. Steve felt like he’d been hit in the gut with a baseball bat.

“Y-you!”

The woman smiled, pouty lips quirking up into a cheeky grin. “Me,” she said cheerfully.

Steve stared, mouth moving but unable to utter a sound. Staff Sergeant Cora Redrock had been assigned to the Army’s Strategic Scientific Reserve Division before Steve had joined up. She had been their Communications Officer, on loan from the Marines. She had followed Peggy onto the field that first day when Peggy had decked Hodges. Steve still remembered the pure glee on her face when Hodges went down.

Cora had been there for everything, for the operation that turned him into Captain America, for his first mission behind enemy lines, and his last. She had passed the Howling Commandos valuable information as their Code-Talker, pulling their collective asses out of the fire more times than Steve could count. To see her standing in his living room, not a wrinkle or gray hair in sight even after seventy years, well, it was a bit of a shock to say the least.

“Hey, Brooklyn,” she drawled, her Western accent comically thick. “How’s it goin’?”

“H-How?”

“How am I as beautiful as ever? How can I be so stunning at my age?”

Steve blushed. He’d almost forgotten Cora’s flippancy.

“Aw, Brooklyn. Did I make you blush?” Cora teased, giving him a toothy, predatory grin.

Steve suppressed the urge to roll his eyes.

Cora’s smile grew wider. “To answer your question, doll-face, I am a mutant.”

Steve blinked. “Mutant?”

Cora didn’t bother to suppress her own eye roll. “Yes. Mutant. I know you know what mutants are and I know you know Lena Ramirez. She’s a mutant. I’m a mutant, too, only where she can disappear I heal faster than I can die. Nifty, right?”

Steve nodded numbly. “Nifty.” He frowned. “That doesn’t explain why you’re here, though.”

Cora’s expression darkened. “Yes,” she said, “that.” She walked over to the chair in the corner and bent at the waist to rummage through the brown leather bag she’d dropped there, her black braid swinging forward over her shoulder. When she straightened Cora held a sheaf of official looking documents. She turned to Steve and held the folder out to him. “I need you to tell Director Fury to kindly fuck. Off.”

Steve frowned and, choosing to ignore Cora’s unladylike cursing, took the proffered folder. The SHIELD logo was stamped across the front. He opened it and perused the document. It was an official recall to the armed forces and reinstatement of Marine Staff Sergeant Cora Redrock along with orders assigning her to SHIELD’s Brooklyn office. “You’re being recalled to duty?” he asked, looking up at her.

Cora crossed her arms. “That’s where you come in. If you’ll notice, those orders have not yet been officially notarized. You are going to tell that leather-loving sky pirate that if he wants to keep on living he will disillusion himself of the notion that I will meekly follow along with his ham-brained schemes.”

Steve stiffened. “You’re threatening the leader of SHIELD,” he said.

Cora shook her head. “Oh no, honey,” she said pleasantly, then, her voice turned rock hard, “I’m not threatening. I’m warning. I have fought in every war this country has waged since 1736, including the Civil War. I am _done_.”

Steve suddenly found it very difficult to swallow. In the years he had known Cora, fought alongside her in ice and snow, both covered in mud and muck and unspeakable things, confronted with the brutal truth of human mortality in the face of mines and bombs and the terrifying reality of Hydra weapons that could disintegrate a man in shot, never had he seen her so tired. Cora had always been the energy of the Howling Commandos. She was jokes and sass and sarcasm. To see her looking so…exhausted, it was new and unpleasant and the worst part was Steve could see it was not a physical weariness that could be fixed with rest and relaxation. It was emotional and psychological and Steve felt altogether helpless in the face of it.

“I’ll tell Fury,” Steve said. It was the only thing he could think to say and he vowed to do just that. He hadn’t been able to protect Bucky and the rest of the Howlies—Peggy and Dum-Dum and Jim and Gabe and the rest—they were all dead or nearly so. Cora was the last of his Howling Commandos. He would protect her as best he could.

“Thank you, _shils aash_.”

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline-wise comes right after ["Neighbors"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6598144/chapters/15094576) in _Scenes in the Life of an Empath_.
> 
> "Code Talkers" was the name given to Dine-speaking Navajo soldiers who developed the only code never broken by the Axis Powers in World War II. You can learn more [here](http://navajocodetalkers.org/)
> 
>  _shils aash_ \- Athabaskan - my friend


End file.
